Texas CHL Data Shows What Happens in the Wild West

Texas is one of the few states that actually tracks crimes committed by concealed carry weapon permit holders. In Texas, the permit is called a concealed handgun license, or CHL. The Texas Department of Public Safety has filed annual reports of the convictions of CHL holders from 1996 through 2011. They wait two years to obtain final conviction information and compile all the data before publishing their totals. As you might expect, the number of CHL holders who commit murder or manslaughter is remarkably low. According to the DPS reports, the number of murder and manslaughter convictions for CHL holders has totaled 30 over the 16 years they’ve compiled the numbers . . .

DPS also reports on the number of active CHL holders for each year. Those numbers were totalled to obtain the number of CHL holder-years. The total number of CHL holder-years for 1996-2011 is 4,295,429. The two numbers give us the ratio of CHL holder convictions for murder and manslaughter per 100,000 CHL holders per year. That number is .70/100,000.

Yes, the decimal point is in the correct place. The rate of murder and manslaughter for the general population of Texas averaged for the years 1996-2011 is 6.0/100,000. You can compare that to national numbers here. What was that about the wild west?

Shhh! It will just be another tax and tracking method.
Gov’t: “Only people with permits can have guns.”
Us: “Wait, what?”
Gov’t: “Well, by your own admission, in Texas, gun crime is substantially lower for those with licenses. So obviously, if people are licensed nationally, then the national rate will decrease accordingly.”

My Texas CHL is not to own a gun, but to carry it in public. “Only those with licenses can HAVE guns” is a very different argument from “Only those with licenses can carry guns in public.” Both have trouble when you put them up against the Second Amendment as written, but in our current political climate I think it’s an important distinction.

No…requiring people would bring the CHL number up because as it stands now…given the choice…those with a vested interest in self defense seek the ability to defend themselves…this is why the CHL community is so self critical of people that DO have CHL’s and run amok…same goes for the gun community but CHL’ers have taken it above and beyond the average gun owner…we CHOOSE to no longer be victims and have come to the realization that no matter how fast a law enforcement officer tries to get there…the violence has already been done…CHL holders choose to carry a violence extinguisher, because self defense starts with “self” for a reason

No, Layne, the point is not that the license make a person law-abiding, but rather that only people willing to abide the law are willing to do the paperwork and submit to the background check. The numbers offered tell the confirming story, that people who have been law-abiding tend to stay that way, and that the carry of a concealed handgun does not convert a person into an aggressive undisciplined cowboy.

Also impressive is looking at ALL crimes. Although CHL holders account for 1.99% of the total population of Texas, they are responsible for only 0.188% of total criminal convictions. This means that CHL holders are 10.6 times MORE law abiding than the general population.

Jeremy, this comes close to the question I always want answered when I hear these statistics: Murder or manslaughter, okay, interesting, but how many CHL/CPL/CCW holders are convicted of illegally shooting someone (or shooting at someone) when that shooting did NOT result in death?

I think this should be an important stat in determining the over-all trustworthiness of CCW holders. Not just how many people they are convicted of shooting to death, but how many did they TRY to shoot to death.

You can pretty much see that info in the first link in my post above (http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/RSD/CHL/Reports/ConvictionRatesReport2011.pdf). It breaks down every type of conviction in Texas, by all appearances. So while it may not be gun-specific, you can see people convicted of, for example, aggravated assault w/ a deadly weapon (0.1085% were CHL holders) or criminal negligent homicide (0.0%) or deadly conduct discharge firearm (0.8197%), etc…. gotta just read through that list and see what might apply.

Considering you could place 6 Michigan’s inside the state boudries of Texas. That comment is challenged at best…. compare population and get back with us….LOL. I’m betting Texas has as many CHL holders at Michigan has total residents…..

Yes, as I explained to a friend once. Because carry permits are not given to criminals in the first place. Imagine that, people who are not criminals tend not to commit crimes. Or, more importantly, giving a law abiding citizen permission to carry a gun doesn’t turn him or her into a criminal.

Seems like the truth could be completely in our favor and it wouldn’t matter. If ALL CHL’s were not only not criminals, but drove school buses and taught sunday school, if EVERY woman who owned a gun used it to stop a rapist, and if EVERY home invasion was stopped by a gun wielding home owner, the story would be “are all these ‘harmless’ gun owners just one bad day away from killing us all at the same time!?!?!” Then the criminals would be morphed into “innocent children” (like they are now) and POTG would be mass murdering psychopaths again.

I have stated on here repeatedly: gun grabbers are hysterical. They keep talking hoping that something sticks. And if nothing sticks, they simply resort to trying to shout us down. It doesn’t matter what you say, they want government to take your guns away. Their talk is simply one method they use to try and disarm us. They are not interested in dialogue or common sense solutions to violent crime. Those are buzz words designed to shame us or guilt us into submission. And that is the desired end result: submission.

After all, isn’t that what guns are all about? A gun in a citizen’s hand means the citizen does not have to submit to a tyrant. Now does everyone understand why government and the gun grabbers want our firearms?

Wild west? I seem to recall reading some years ago that there was a total of around 45 homicides in all the Kansas cowtowns during the entire trail drive period. Doubtless some would have survived with modern medicine. On the other hand, you could leave your home unlocked and women could walk the streets unmolested. Bring back the Wild West.

The west was Wild mainly in the gaudy portrayals of the penny novels, fondly read by timid easterners as they remained indoors to avoid the predations of big city crime. Half of Manhattan, the lower east side and Hell’s Kitchen, was a hell-hole in the 1870’s-1920’s. No western town would have tolerated the crime of the Bowery or Chicago’s meat-packing district. Wyatt Earp, no angel, was a saint compared to the big-city police sergeants in Philadelphia or Chicago that were contemporary to the Earps.

They published the LEO conviction rates in Texas a few years back and not only were they FAR worse than that of CHL holders, I believe they were actually worse than that of the general population in many categories.

These results shouldn’t be surprising. Holders of concealed carry permits are a self-selecting group of law abiding, responsible citizens. If they weren’t, they couldn’t get past the background check. Training to get the permit makes them still less likely to go wrong.

This is somewhat skewed. Saying responsible, law-abiding citizens that take proactive measures to protect themselves and their families are less likely than the general population average to be convicted of manslaughter seems like a no-brainer. I’m not saying people should not carry or get training, but not everyone can carry. Most people quite simply aren’t up to snuff and would be one freakout away from handing a gun over to a criminal or leaving it on a restroom counter. Seriously, look at the people around you in public, I’m surprised anyone trusts some of them with car keys or a cell phone. I wish everyone were up to the same standard, although then pretty much everything would be different, but it’s just a wish.

Ya way to go Texas ,go after law abiding citizens ,lets NOT go after gang bangers or illegal guns that’s too much work so we are going to track people who are obeying the law and have a Constitutional RIGHT to carry,it’s called keep( own ) and bear(carry) arms ,ever heard of it ? Been around awhile!

Here’s something interesting – firearms murders as a percentage of all murders (I’m assuming that doesn’t include manslaughter) is pretty low in Texas. You’re also much more likely to be beaten to death in Texas than anywhere else. It might not be pleasant, but it’s also hard to blame on guns.

I think the rates are even lower. You compare the murder rate per year in TX to the rate over 16 years for CHL holders. So, a better comparison might be 1.875 (30/16) CHL holder murders per year, which would give you a rate more than 10-fold lower, more like .044/100K if my quick calcs are right. Then, that’s murders + manslaughter for CHL holders. Is the general Texas figure just murders but not manslaughters? If so, that would make the comparison even more extreme.

It’s important to note that the 30 convictions of DHL holders does NOT say if the deaths occurred outside or INSIDE the home. No DHL licence is needed for the gun inside the home — where domestic disputes usually arise.

Hence the CARRY crime deaths outside the home is surely considerably smaller than the paltry 30 deaths noted here.

Know what is the best predictor of a state’s gun deaths per 100,000? The percentage of blacks. About half the murder victims in America are black, and 94% of them are killed by other blacks. The black ‘culture’ venerates gangsta living and violence — and black men seldom marry when they have kids (high correlation of single parent homes and violence in black male children).

Is that racist of me to point out facts? Surely many would think so. Especially people like Obama and Sharpton who play the race card almost constantly. The LAST thing they want to discuss is the culpability of the black community.

2. Counting all people in your comparison is wrong. Kids should be excluded from the population (unless they also are concealed carry permit holders — a rather uncommon occurrence).

3. MOST IMPORTANT: You fail to understand what the “4,295,429” figure is. That’s NOT the number of concealed carry holders in America. It’s the total cc holder MAN YEARS in Texas. It’s derived by taking the number of Texas CC holders (currently at a new high of about 826,000) times the number of years covered in the study — 1996 through 2011. I might add that it appears the study grossly understates the total cc man years – thus OVERstating the murder frequency of such holders.

Again and again we hear the usual laments from the uninformed gun haters about concealed carry — how it would transform — DOES transform — a civilized society into the Wild West. You know the mantra — shootouts at fender-benders, bars ablaze with gunfights, etc.

It’s always fun to inject a dose of reality into such gun haters — it’s toxic to their wellbeing. Here’s a sharp needle-full of facts for your favorite anti-gun friends. They never actually check the empirical results of people legally carrying firearms — that just arrogantly assume that they know what the results are.

The short article below highlights the URL-available stats about the ACTUAL experience of concealed carry in Texas. People pack heat with great frequency in the Lone Star State — about 4.26% of the adults have a permit — 826,000 as of December, 2014. The adult (18 and over) population of Texas in 2013 was 19,406,000. Only Florida and Pennsylvania issue more permits.

Perhaps the three most important bottom line points to consider from these stats:
1. In Texas, there were 364 convictions for murder in 2013 — THREE were committed by concealed carry permit holders.
2. There were 91 convictions for manslaughter — ZERO were committed by CC folks.
3. For all types of crimes in Texas, there were 50,869 convictions. CC holders were convicted of 158 of those crimes.

Let me add that the tiny three 2013 murder convictions of the CC holders probably OVERSTATES their abuse of their right to carry. Except for criminals, most murders occur in the home — where the CC permit is not an issue (not necessary to have a firearm at home).

But let me be fair — the odds are that such overwhelming empirical evidence is not likely to change a single progressive’s mind. To present such objective facts is to reveal that I’m surely in the employ of dark powers, and probably a racist to boot. This knee-jerk response is embedded deep in the progressive’s DNA — let’s not hold them personally responsible for this inability to process facts, or to rebut logical thoughts.

Which establishes your argument in a sense. The sense that it doesn’t support you is that the data is very weak. With so few convictions for CC holders, any increase or decrease in the number of convictions changes a lot. For example, if CC holders had 11 more murder or manslaughter convictions, they would have the same likelihood as the general population. Now, 11 more means nearly 3X more murder or manslaughter convictions within that group, but 11 is also not very many in terms of real-world activity in Texas.

Also note this is only concerning _conviction_ rates. There certainly are more people in both groups that have killed someone illegally and had a devious lawyer, or been convicted of shooting someone illegally who hasn’t died, or shot someone legally solely because they had a gun. Looking only at convictions paints a rosy picture: with a state-wide encouragement of concealed carry, DAs find less legal recourse to convict.

Richard, are so insistent that your position be true that you have found data you like, and are holding to it regardless of the fogginess of that data. I suspect you will not be able to change your stance from an absolute one to being able to question what you believe. This is the core problem of many gun-rights activists.

Sooo, tesdee, first you agree I’m basically right about the data (even after you cherry pick a different year rather than using the most recent 2013 year with lower crime numbers and a significantly higher number of CC permit holders), and then you turn right around and start making wild claims about CC holders having a licence to kill — that “devious lawyers” get ’em off the hook when they murder, and police condone such shootings. You present not a shred of evidence. You think “devious lawyers” work only for CC holders?

No sale.

Moreover, go back to the other years’ data. You’ll find a consistent pattern of low murder rates for CC holders.

Finally, these Texas murder rates do NOT differentiate whether or not the CC holder was outside the house. Surely many and likely most such murders occur in the home, where the CC permit is not needed to purchase a gun (legally or otherwise).

More important, the murder and manslaughter figures don’t even indicate that a gun was used in the crime. Often as not manslaughter is the result of a drunk driving a car. If that drunk has a CC permit, he’s listed under that CC category.

2011 is the latest _complete_ data for all points of interest. Read more carefully.

I did not say that CC holders were the only ones with devious lawyers; it was _both_ groups. Read more carefully.

DAs having less legal recourse to convict is not saying anything about cops. Read more carefully.

No evidence is needed since plea bargains and other protections against conviction are an actual thing. Read more carefully.

If you are defending the murder+manslaughter rates and defending CC holders based on this, then that’s your data that you are arguing against. So you figure out whether you actually want to be arguing on that data.

Finally, if murder+manslaughter rates don’t differentiate weapon, this makes the CC holders actually _more_ likely to be convicted of murder+manslaughter by gun, because there would be fewer murder+manslaughter convictions by gun on the non-CC holder’s side of the data. It’s pretty clear that you don’t understand how statistics work intuitively, so you will have to work harder to understand data when it is given to you.

In general, just be more careful that you understand my points. They are pretty good counter arguments.